Brilliant Club Trip to Oxford University

The Brilliant Club Scholars Programme kicked off with of a visit to the prestigious Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall) for our introductory trip. On arrival we were privileged to have a tour of the beautiful university, guided by a few Oxford student ambassadors. This gave me an opportunity to flood them with questions about, the application process to top universities like Oxford, what life is like at Oxford, and just other questions on university in general. 

After this session, we met with our PhD tutor, who had recently completed her PhD over in America. She was also acting as a lecturer to students at university level, so it was most definitely a unique opportunity we were given to experience university-style teaching. We were then placed in small groups and introduced to the 'super-curricular' course we would be learning about. Our allocated course was 'Why American's Love Guns', and as you can expect my initial reaction was of bemusement as to the strangeness of the course title. However, it was a 'super-curricular' course for a reason and as we got into our first study session my fascination for the topic grew immensely. 

Over the following few weeks, we were given further study-sessions by our PhD tutor but now taking within our school classrooms. Over the course of these sessions i went from merely knowing that well, Americans do love guns, too having a deep understanding of the history of firearm laws, early American views on firearms and how they have transformed immensely over time as well as the innovation of these weapons and their uses.

Additionally, we were then instructed to write up a 2,500 word essay as our final assignment, initially, this seemed daunting as i had never written a essay of such length before. However, the amount of knowledge I had gained through my study sessions and additional research allowed me to produce a top quality essay, and to my surprise i was even awarded with a 1st after it was marked. 

Finally, we were then invited to a graduation event at Royal Holloway university. After a tour of the university, we were given a formal certification to celebrate our achievements. I was extremely proud of myself for my achievement and will continue to take great pride in it. Furthermore, it has made me more confident to apply for world-leading universities as it shows that I am able to work at and even above university-level. 

Henry Eneje

Year 13